I recently took Bradley Method childbirth classes to prepare for labor and part of the assigned reading was a bunch of podcasts and articles from Evidence Based Birth. This title is ironic, as several one-star reviewers pointed out, because the podcast cannot even admit what a woman is. Well, let me tell you that we are women.
Fuming, I sent off an email that read:
I just wanted to say that while I am appreciating the abundance of research and statistics from listening/reading these recommended pieces from the Evidence Based Birth website, it is extremely distracting, like nails on a chalkboard, every time the host says/writes “birthing person,” “pregnant human,” “chestfeeder,” “human milk,” “laboring person,” and so forth. To me, who has only felt the pangs of femininity/womanhood a few times in my life and the most right now, being pregnant for the first time, this kind of language makes me feel invisible or like some kind of cattle. I want to be proud of my womanhood—not ashamed of it.
Cooly, this was the response from my childbirth teacher:
EBB is the best available source for quality information about birth – I love that you are finding those sources informative.
EBB intentionally uses non-gendered language to be inclusive of various identities. I’m sorry to hear it’s made you uncomfortable – please feel free to reach out to EBB with your concerns.
Although I encourage families to access these resources due to their high quality – please know it is not required. Feel free to skip anything from EBB if their use of inclusive language is negatively impacting you.
Doesn’t this response make it sound like this is my own personal problem? That I have to search inward to understand why this “triggers” me? Of course, I sat on this email feeling even more invisible and gaslit and curious as to why.
Here’s why I find those so offensive: I mentioned to my mother while on the playground that my sides were hurting, kind of cramping up. I remember her proudly telling me that I was becoming a woman. She taught me how to shave my legs for the first time. And then cancer robbed me of any more answers about womanhood when I finally started bleeding at eleven. Now the images circle of my sweaty forehead leaning against the bathroom sink, my entire body pressed against the bathroom floor to cool down, my father holding a wet rag to my drooping forehead, waking up suddenly during class, realizing that I had passed out sideways out of my chair for a second from all the menstrual pain. Growing up to become “a woman” stunk. I wanted to escape the monthly pain. I saw no clear reason for having to go through this again and again. I learned to take ibuprofen before all the pain even began—large doses. I got on birth control by fifteen to control my irregular and painful cycles. I didn’t want to be a woman when my body was keeping me from school and focusing on learning. I dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers every single day for maximum comfort and to hide my changing body.
Experiencing sex for the first time made me understand exactly what kind of woman I am in the bedroom. Without revealing too much, I became someone new to me—a submissive, clingy, dependent woman. I learned to desire nothing more than that protective touch. Perhaps being a woman wasn’t so bad after all, though it was frightening to be so vulnerable.
Then, I went through a year of waiting and tears trying to conceive, thinking I had somehow broken my own body. Being a woman was awful once again. Until it finally happened. The positive second line and the hugs of shock and excitement. Soon enough, the kicks made me smile and the belly made me waddle, my nipples leaked and my pelvis ached, but I was carefully watching what my body seemed to already know how to do. Everything I had been through started to make sense. In utter awe, I learned how much my body could do and had been doing to bring new life into this world. I finally fell in love with being a woman.
So imagine my surprise when the word I was just learning to love, “woman,” was no longer in vogue, being erased right before my very eyes, in the very place where “woman” and “mother” should be praised—childbirth classes. Instead, I heard the cold, clammy words of “birthing person” and “chestfeeder.” I felt lost again, without a mother figure to hold my hand and guide me through this pregnancy. I lost sight of what it was to be a woman now that even my childbirth classes and the hospital didn’t consider me one. All to kowtow to the transgender population who make up less than one percent of the population worldwide.
Look, I am no stranger to feeling excluded. I lost my mother at a young age and had to put up in every grade with things like, “Where are your parents taking you for Christmas break”? or “What kind of card should we make for Mother’s Day?” or “What did you and your parents do over summer break?” I had to either ignore the whole plural aspect by responding, “We went to the beach” or “My dad took us to the beach.” (My brother dealt with the same thing, by the way). Now, single-parent families are at least seven percent of the population worldwide. Should I have demanded that everyone only acknowledge their fathers? Should I have threatened others if they said “parents”? Should I have had teachers fired for asking me about both parents? Absolutely not. That’s simply not how the world works. You cannot change language for people who live outside of the “average” or the “norm.” Society cannot function that way. Plus, the older I got, the more I realized just how lucky those kids were to be able to say “parents” and not have to think about their answers beforehand. They were lucky and I would not want to take that away from them.
Transgenderism is the same phenomenon. They feel different in their own skin, uncomfortable—for the majority, after some kind of social trauma. They need a therapist for that—not to change the way that people speak to one another in everyday life. And they certainly have no right to coerce other people to play along with their fantasy. As J. K. Rowling and many others have already stated: a man dressing up as a woman is still a man, a woman dressing up as a man is still a woman. You can pretend all you want, but I fear that you will never find the truth or happiness that way. However, I refuse to use “inclusive” and “non-gendered” language to appease some force I have never met, policing what I say and how I say it. That is the least American thing I have ever heard. I am a woman, having earned the title, and finally proud to be known as one.
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Links: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wvxta3rh/items; https://www.bradleybirth.com/; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/evidence-based-birth/id1334808138; https://stories.jkrowling.com/en-us/my-story/; https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-03/the-long-history-of-transgender-people-in-australia-and-beyond/102037662
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Views Expressed Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of American Wordsmith, LLC. Please also know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not nor should it be considered Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand’s philosophy visit: aynrand.org.